Wednesday, October 30, 2013

I was having a run at the Y.
A man with a red tipped white cane found his way to the treadmill next to mine. He folded up his cane, an employee assisted him with pushing buttons to get the machine started, and then he was running along next to me.
Then he started to laugh. And then he laughed harder. He was running and laughing and it was contagious and I began to laugh. And the man on the other side of him began to laugh. And the three of us ran, and laughed, and ran. And then he yelled, still laughing, "I USUALLY CAN'T RUN!" And we all laughed harder still, and cried too.
It was the best run of my life, and I still think of him sometimes when I'm out for some exercise and I appreciate how great it feels to just run.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Another
comedian, my friend Johnny, and I had a gig in Mill Valley, a very
wealthy neighborhood North of San Francisco. As we were leaving a cop
pulled me over. He seemed pleasant enough as he came to my window.

"You know why I pulled you over?" he asked, as they do.

Yeah, because I'm a driving a 10 year old Toyota Corolla in Mill Valley, I thought. "No officer, was I speeding?" I said.

"No, but you didn't stop at that stop sign back there."

You mean the one I just stopped at?, I thought. "Oh, I must not have seen it." I said.

We're looking for rich old ladies to rob, I thought. "We're comics. We just performed at the theater." I said.

"Oh, great, great. You're performers. Let me run your license real
quick and we'll get you on the road." He then ran my license, found me
warrant free and told us to have a nice night. No ticket, though I'd
supposedly run a stop sign.

I'd been pulled over just for
being poor in a rich neighborhood. "Damn!" I said to Johnny as I pulled
away from the curb, this must be what black people feel like." Then I
thought for a minute and added "... I mean, except for that part where
he let us go."

Johnny seemed distracted. I'm pretty sure he was looking for old ladies to rob.